Of course, the Kentucky Derby will feel different

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The road to the Kentucky Derby is lined on both sides with rented chain-link fence. Though COVID-19 precautions will prevent the general public from attending America’s preeminent horse race on Saturday, the stretch of Central Avenue adjoining Churchill Downs has been fortified in anticipation of a large and potentially unruly crowd.

Ongoing protests over the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26year-old emergency room technician who was shot and killed by police in her apartment in March, are expected to gravitate toward the site of the nation’s oldest continuously held major sports event with the 100th day of demonstrations set to take place on Friday, Kentucky Oaks day. Heightened security in place Thursday included redundant weapons checks in the track’s parking lot and at its security gate.

The 146th Run for the Roses will be dramatically different than any previous edition at Churchill Downs, and that’s assuming there’s a minimum of drama outside the property and adherence to the track's mask requirements inside. Rescheduled from May as a concession to the coronavirus, Saturday’s Derby will be the first one staged in September and the first one in which racing’s Woodstock may seem as muted as chamber music.

“I went out to eat (Monday) night, and it’s not the same, obviously,” Jack Knowlton told a pool reporter. “There aren’t people around. There’s no energy. And our driver had a hard time finding some of the restaurants he likes because they’re closed up.

“Monday of Derby Week? Restaurant closed? No.”

Managing partner of New York’s Sackatoga Stable, Knowlton is the amiable ownership face behind Tiz the Law, the 3-5 Derby favorite seeking a second leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown. Knowlton’s first trip to the Derby, in 2003, was made memorable by the longshot victory of Funny Cide and by an unpretentious ownership entourage that arrived for the race in a yellow school bus.

Knowlton said he had received clearance to bring his partners back to the track via school bus this week, but simulating the rest of their Derby experience may be difficult. Instead of navigating a Churchill Downs crowd that has numbered as many as 170,513, spectators will likely be limited to fewer than 2,000 owners, invited guests, staff and credentialed media.

“We know there are some who disagree with our decision to run the Kentucky Derby this year,” Churchill Downs said in a statement issued Thursday. “We respect that point of view but made our decision in the belief that traditions can remind us of what binds us together as Americans, even as we seek to acknowledge and repair the terrible pain that rends us apart.”

Some of those traditions will be on hiatus this week. Instead of the parades, parties and pandemonium that normally surround Louisville’s signature event, visitors will bear witness to boarded-up storefronts and uncongested streets. The riverfront Galt House was advertising weekend rooms for as little as $114 a night Thursday afternoon.

In another sign of abnormal times, a statue of the unfortunate Louis XVI, the guillotined French king for whom the city was named, was removed from its downtown pedestal Thursday after losing a hand and gaining multi-colored graffiti during recent protests.

Barclay Tagg, Tiz the Law’s 82-yearold trainer, has repeatedly expressed concerns that the protests, mostly peaceful thus far, could escalate. Among the groups expected to demonstrate outside the track are the local Justice and Freedom Coalition, which has employed the slogan, “No justice, no Derby,” and the Black militia known as the Not F------ Around Coalition.

Along with anxieties about how the weekend might unfold, the most common complaints heard this week at Churchill Downs include a sense of longing for what the Derby normally represents and what this year's will be missing.

“I’ve always talked about if I got here, I’d bring everybody I know,” said John Finelli, co-owner of Ny Traffic. “I would have certainly done that. But with eight tickets, it’s a little hard. Obviously, it’s not going to be the same experience.”